Kachi-Kachi Mountain

d*

KACEMACH! MOUNTAIN.

upon a time there
was an old farmer who
cultivated a field in the mountains-
One day his old wife came and

brought him his dinner; but a
badger stole and eat it. This
made the old man angry and
at last he took the badger
alive, carried it home with him,
and hung it to a rafter by the
feet Then he said to his wife,
"Let us have this badger for
soup. Have it well cooked and
wait till I come back." Then
he went again to the field.
His wife was pounding barley
in a mortar and singing.

In distress the badger said,
"If you will only spare my
life I will pound the barley for
you." As it was indeed in a
sad plight she untied the cord
and let it down.

u

u

Then right away the bad-
ger sprang at the old
woman and killed her,
and made her into soup.
Then he assumed her
shape and sat waiting,

f

when the old man returned
from the field. When he was
about to partake of tffe soup? the
badger assumed his original form,
and cried out, "You wife-eating

old man you! Did not you see
thfe bones under the floor?"
Laughing derisively it escaped
out of doors and disappeared.
The old man threw down his
chop-sticks and cried

long and bitterly,

Now in the
same mountain there
lived an old rabbit.
Hearing the voice of the old
man crying, he came and tried to
comfort him, and said he would
himself avenge the death of the
old woman. "First," he said,
"parch me some beans." And
the old man parched them.
The rabbit put the parched beans
in a pouch and said, "Now to

the mountain again;" and away
he went. The badger was

attracted by the smell, and came
and said; "Give me about a
handful of those beans." This was
what the rabbit was expecting.
So he said; "I will if you will
carry a bundle of dry-grass for me
over to yon mountain." "I will
do as you say without fail," replied
the badger, "only first give me
the beans." He begged impor-
tunately, but the rabbit

3it said ; j
_J

"Yes, after you have carried the
load of dry-grass/' He then put
on his back a great pile of
dried-grass and sent the badger
on before, while J^ he took
out his
flint

and struck out a spark, and
set the bundle on fire. The
badger alarmed at the noise
asked, "what is that?" The
rabbit replied; "That is Kaehi-
Kachi Mountain."* Soon the fire
began to kindle and
spread in

> Click-Click Mountain, or the Mountain of Victory.

again asked, "what is that?"
The rabbit replied, "That is Bo-Bo
Mountain. "t By this time the fire
had spread to the badger's back
and burnt it badly. Crying out in
pain, he rolled over and shook off
his load and ran away out of sight.
The rabbit next mixed some
sauce and red-pepper and made a
sticking plaster, put on a hat and
set out to sell it as a cure for
blisters and burns, The badger
was then lying helpless with his

f Crackle Mountain, or Mountain of Defeat.

'

back all raw and sore. That must
be a good medicine, he thought,
when he heard of it. So he got
some applied to his back. But
there is no language to tell how
he smarted when the red-pepper
sticking plaster was applied to his
sore skin. He just rolled over and
over and howled long and bitterly.
Now after about twenty- days the
badger's sore was healed. The
rabbit was then making a boat,
and the badger seeing it asked

"what are you going to do with
this boat?" The rabbit replied, "I
intend to catch fish," thus deceiving.
The badger felt envious, but was
dull iii^. that kind of work.

"I too will make a boat of clay/'
he said. So having made a clay
boat he rowed out to sea along
with the rabbit. Then the
badger's boat began to sink,

and when it was sinking, the
rabbit brandished aloft his oar
and struck the badger dead,
thus avenging the
old man's

wife.

Prtottd by the Mmntha in Tokyo, Japan.